Bondarenko O. Excited states of argon and krypton molecules and clusters formed in supersonic jets

The object is the connection of the processes of relaxation and radiation decay of electron-excited states of rare-gas molecules and clusters. The goal of the study is to find the relation between the VUV cathodeluminescence spectra and the Ar and Kr cluster sizes. It is also planned to detect the features of relaxation and rediation decay of the electron excitations caused by the size effects. The methods are spectroscopy and electron diffraction measurements. The new results and achievments are following. Presented are the results of investigation on VUV cathodoluminescence spectra of argon and krypton molecules and clusters formed in supersonic jets. The processes of formation and radiative decay of krypton excimers in atomic jet have established. It has been shown that in excited clusters VUV luminescence centers of excimers type are generated in vibratonal-relaxed states. In excited ion clusters four atom complex is formed: molecular ion - excimer molecule, the radiative decay of the latter resulting in observing strong VUV continuums, not known before. Two competitive channels for relaxation of exciton energy in clusters, due to spatial energy quantization inside exciton bands, have been discovered. It has been shown that the new desorption channel is connected with the dissociation of high-excited excimers arising in clusters due to autolocalization of excitons from high-energy np-band.